Next Year's Preaching

I want to say, "Thanks" to everyone who gave me some feedback on what I should concentrate on preaching in the coming year (in this case the "year" starts in September). It was nice being in conversation with everyone, and you're comments were helpful to get me to the point where I could start mapping out the series for next year. I even got some ideas that I wouldn't have thought of in a million years, the best of which was doing a series on the 12 Apostles. A series on the Apostles is intriguing, and I might begin researching that series in the coming year, 'cause that'll take a good amount of work to do it well.

Anyway, here's what's coming up at Central in terms of teaching themes:

• The 10 Commandments: The next series leaves me with 10 weeks to fill from September through the middle of November. Qohelet pointed out that, gee-whiz, there's 10 Commandments so it fit well and the topics are straight-forward enough that I could keep developing the other series while it was in progress (His first suggestion was less helpful, "Something on Jesus"). So, we'll be doing the "Thou Shalts" this fall.
• What's Time Got To Do With It?: This was a nearly universal selection by people, even among my "non-liturgical" friends (which surprised me). I won't be preaching directly from a lectionary (though, I have done that in the past and I think it's a wonderful discipline). Rather, I had already started work on a discipleship curriculum that would walk through the Church Year in 10 - 12 weeks and I'm adapting the bulk of the Readings from that (the gaps are filled in with "Year A" texts in the Common Lectionary though). We'll start this series two weeks before Advent with a sermon on the nature and function of the Bible, and one on the rhythm of life that is prescribed in the Tanakh. After that, we're off to the races. I've yet to decide what to do about non-sunday feast days (some, by happy circumstance, already fall on Sunday in the coming year).
• Kingdom Living: This series, which was first used in CrossPoint, will begin after Pentecost. This fits well because Ordinary Time is designed to talk about the mission of the Church.
• The Politics of Jesus - will come in Fall of 2008. I want to do a series on the political impact that Jesus' message had in his day, and ask if the political impact it has on our day should be similar. I'll be researching this one throughout the coming year.
• The End Of All Things - Will actually conclude What's Time Got To Do With It? It'll go through Advent with a second coming focus.
• Mission Focused Life - Will start in January of 2009. I'm already working on the materials for this series in preparation for the January 2008 Student Chaplain Retreat. This will end up being my next devotional study book if it pans out well.
  

See how you helped? Now we're mapping stuff into 2009! Thanks!

Tags: Church, Preaching